Snack smart with fruits and vegetables

By TIMMI TOLER

Published: Friday, February 22, 2013 at 12:00 AM.

Vegetables are also low in calories — which brings us to those chips. You can have about 10 chips for 100 calories or about 30 baby carrots. I like baby carrots, but I don’t know that I’d eat 30 in one sitting. I would definitely eat 30 chips though, so it’s worth trying to substitute 30 carrots for 300 calories.

Both fruits and vegetables provide a sense of being full which is one of the reasons people eat too much. When we still feel hungry, we keep eating. We stop when we feel full.

You can also use substitutions for high calorie foods. Try eating an apple instead of a grab bag of corn chips and save more than 300 calories. Fill your plate with low-calorie vegetables instead of high calorie items.

Try to get between 1 to 2 cups of fruit and 2 to 3 cups of vegetables each day. One cup is about the size of your fist.

Here are a couple of final snacking tips from the program.

Keep snack packs of fruit handy. They make a great go-to for when you’re hungry at work or on the go (and also helps you avoid the dreaded vending machine). Keep a bowl of fruit and veggies in the kitchen or at eye level in the refrigerator so you’re more likely to choose those as your munchies instead of cookies and cakes and brownies.

This is pretty disheartening news to someone who loves to snack and I am that someone.

So it was exciting to learn in Eat Smart, Move More, Weigh Less about different ways to snack that allow you to deal with the munchies in a healthy way.

Snacking should be all about fruits and vegetables.

Fruits are low in calories, help provide a sense of fullness and have a lot of fiber.

There are high energy density foods — foods that contain a large amount of calories in smaller portions and low energy density foods — where there are few calories such as fruit. So you can have a whole cup of grapes for about 100 calories, or you can have a small piece of a candy bar.

Or if you’re like me, you’d probably eat both.

Vegetables are also low in calories — which brings us to those chips. You can have about 10 chips for 100 calories or about 30 baby carrots. I like baby carrots, but I don’t know that I’d eat 30 in one sitting. I would definitely eat 30 chips though, so it’s worth trying to substitute 30 carrots for 300 calories.

Both fruits and vegetables provide a sense of being full which is one of the reasons people eat too much. When we still feel hungry, we keep eating. We stop when we feel full.

You can also use substitutions for high calorie foods. Try eating an apple instead of a grab bag of corn chips and save more than 300 calories. Fill your plate with low-calorie vegetables instead of high calorie items.

Try to get between 1 to 2 cups of fruit and 2 to 3 cups of vegetables each day. One cup is about the size of your fist.

Here are a couple of final snacking tips from the program.

Keep snack packs of fruit handy. They make a great go-to for when you’re hungry at work or on the go (and also helps you avoid the dreaded vending machine). Keep a bowl of fruit and veggies in the kitchen or at eye level in the refrigerator so you’re more likely to choose those as your munchies instead of cookies and cakes and brownies.

Or, if you’re like me, you’re likely to choose them all.

Timmi Toler is city editor of The Daily News who will be attending the Eat Smart, Move More, Weigh Less 15-week weight management program sponsored by OnslowCountyParks and Recreation, North Carolina Cooperative Extension and the Onslow County Health Department and sharing her thoughts each Friday. This is the information from week 6. Contact her at timmi.toler@jdnews.com.